Colorado Springs artist Corey Drieth seeks to make lyrically poetic objects that are simultaneously intimate, mysterious, and expansive.
Inspired by daily life, art history, and religious traditions such as Zen Buddhism and Quaker Christianity, Corey Drieth’s work explores contemplative spiritual experience.
“For the past fifteen years, I have spent most of my time in the studio making delicate small-scale abstract paintings on poplar panel. Like many people today, I want to define my own spiritual path and do so by borrowing from multiple theological, literary, and artistic precedents. My goal is to create an iconography that is both deeply personal and highly evocative; I want to make lyrically poetic objects that are simultaneously intimate, mysterious, and expansive. More specifically, I am interested in the square as both a design element and historically sacred principle. The act of exploring these ideas via painting has become the center of my spiritual practice.
Since formally committing to this investigation, my interest in the square has become almost fetishistic. For me, the square, when placed in and around the flowing radial of wood grain, is erotically charged. It penetrates and is penetrated by this organic structure; it is revealed and concealed by it. It acts as a still point, a portal, a light source, a window, a seed, an orifice, a wound. This sometimes awkward, sometimes graceful relationship embodies my own search for meaning—the search for a balance between the inner and the outer, the intuitive and the rational, the timeless and temporary—a search that is defined by the ritual of making and remaking.”
Liniment abstractly addresses the body, presenting it as a sacred space defined by both wounds and healing acts.
Drieth received undergraduate degrees in comparative religious studies and studio art from Colorado State University in Fort Collins and an MFA from the University of North Carolina.
Colorado Springs, CO | cdrieth.com | Ampersand Gallery, Portland
